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New Concepts In Charter, Part One

These are “disruptive” times. New technologies are challenging and changing the ways we communicate, conduct business and ...

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Discuss this Article 3

My compliments to David Esler on a well researched and even better presented article. At last a comprehensive look at on-demand, point-to-point alternatives.

However, you have conflated a few things—oranges and apples, if you will.

The operations you have outlined all do solve a part of the puzzle. None, to date, are an affordable replacement for the bus service in the sky: the commercial airline.

The only way to reduce the price of the trip is to sell it in bits: by the seat. But this is the next problem. How to account for the empty, non-revenue producing seat. It is accomplished by amortizing this risk with yield/load management techniques. This has the effect of boosting prices in the wrong direction…upward.

A way to eliminate financial risk for the owner/operator is to sell each charter by-the-individual-traveler. It is perfectly legal. It has been done for ages. But nobody has used the internet’s inherent collaboration, or sharing phenomena to offer this commercially. The legacy methodology was say for members of a camera club to charter a trip to view and photograph an eclipse. Those wanting to go formed a sub-group and went on their merry way.

So, too, an internet presence could be created, either via social media, or directly by a commercial entity that enables disparate members to form a discrete group and find like minded members who want to equally share the total cost of a designated charter.

In the above scenario, the owner/operator always gets his stipulated cost with his ideal margin built in. Because risk has been eliminated, and therefore the efficiency is boosted; prices will decline. The result is on-demand, point-to-point travel that saves inordinate time yet at almost airline price.

Skeptical? Get the market price of a charter for a proffered route. Divide that price by the available seats on the charter. Then compare it to an unrestricted, full price commercial ticket for the same route. The ticket prices will be similar to the charter’s seat price. What will be amazing, is the time saved.